Apple’s Mobile Me online suite might finally be going free, with some existing members noticing that Apple is now referring to them as “full members.”
Mobile Me offers a range of tools, including email, online storage, and sync services to Mac users. The package currently costs $99 for an individual or $149 for a family.
According to 9-5 Mac, the change to “full member status” has been going on for sometime, and would indicate the possible introduction of a free version. Given most of the tools offered by Mobile Me can be found elsewhere online for free, it’s a reasonable guess to make.
Others argue that Apple can’t compete with Google while charging for things like email, but it’s an argument with possibly flawed logic: does Apple really want to compete with Google in areas like email to begin with?
As a Mobile Me customer, there are two things I primarily use the service for: syncing between computers and online backup of that data (calendar, passwords etc) and the one unique tool it does offer: the ability to find my iPhone when I can’t remember where I left it. The email isn’t all that great, and with the exception of occasionally using the iPhone tool I never log into the Mobile Me site to use it. A quick straw poll of friends on the service indicated similar use reasons.
Still, if it does go free that’s on less annual bill I have to pay for, so I’m all for it ?
